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Parkersburg. Why, the newspapers have been nearly beside themselves recounting your daring escapades.”
    Braxton swallowed hard, setting down his cup. “The papers, sir, tend to exaggerate.”
    “So I have often noted,” Lincoln observed.
    Lincoln and Pinkerton exchanged a glance before the President continued.
    “What was it like, facing down a dragon?” Lincoln asked.
    “I really couldn’t say, sir,” Braxton replied. “We were repelling the Gray Soldiers when it hit the Monitor and knocked her into the river.”
    “Quite the harrowing tale,” he said. “You seem like a man who can think on his feet even when the Monitor under him is losing its own footing. The kind of man who knows how to get things done in the face of adversity.”
    “I’ve seen my share of that,” Braxton admitted. He’d been right, this meeting was more than a social call. “Begging your pardon, sir, but you seem like a man with something on his mind.”
    Pinkerton barked out a short laugh. “Told you,” he said, nodding to Lincoln.
    “I must confess, you’re right, Captain” the President said, rising. He strode to a cabinet on the wall and withdrew a rolled up paper. “If you’re willing, I have a job for you.”
    Braxton took heart at that. Maybe this made up story of his valor could do some good, perhaps even get him back on the tall gun team, or better yet, on Chief Engineer Ericsson’s project, whatever that was. Either one would be a dream come true.
    Lincoln returned to the couch and spread out the paper on the low table. Braxton’s heart sunk when he saw it was a map depicting the southern state of Alabama. Why would they need an engineer that far behind enemy lines?
    “This will be a dangerous assignment,” Pinkerton said, confirming Braxton’s impression. “But a man of your abilities might just be able to pull it off.”
    Braxton’s mouth went dry and he could feel himself start to sweat into his new coat. He tried not to let the distress show on his face.
    “This mission is critical,” Pinkerton said.
    “The fact of the matter, Captain,” Lincoln said, leaning back in the couch, “is that we’re losing this war.”
    Braxton hesitated, then spoke. “May I speak freely, sir?”
    It was Pinkerton who nodded. “This conversation is entirely off the record, lad,” he said. “Say what’s on your mind.”
    “Meaning no disrespect, sir, but anyone who’s been out there on the front lines knows the war is lost,” he said. “First the Gray soldiers, and now the Frenchies are giving the Rebels dragons? Do you know, sir, that after a battle, Rebel gleaners comb the fields for every corpse they can drag back to their own lines? They stitch them up, then do whatever ungodly horror they do to bring them back, and then send them back into the lines all over again to take up arms against us. Our own friends and kin.”
    Braxton shuddered at the thought of seeing Laurie, gray faced and white-eyed, marching across a smoky battlefield in Rebel colors.
    “Your gun platform did good service against all that,” Pinkerton said.
    “Again, all due respect, we can’t make them fast enough,” Braxton said. “I helped design them. I know.”
    “What are you getting at, Captain?” President Lincoln asked in a quiet, surprisingly gentle voice.
    “Maybe it’s time to sue for peace, sir,” Braxton said. “Maybe it’s time to end the war.”
    Lincoln paused before he spoke, as if he were letting Braxton’s words sink in, weighing them carefully against his response.
    “Why are you fighting this war, Captain?” he asked.
    “I suppose it’s because the idea of one man holding another in bondage against his will, for no crime other than being born different … well, it just isn’t right,” Braxton shrugged.
    Lincoln considered this for a moment, then went on.
    “That’s a good answer,” he said. “Slavery is an abomination, to be sure, but this war is about so much more than that evil